Mendoza (locally: [men'dosa]) is the capital city of Mendoza Province, in Argentina. It is located in the northern-central part of the province, in a region of foothills and high plains, on the eastern side of the Andes. As of the 2010 census[INDEC], Mendoza's population was 115 041. The metropolitan population was 1 055 679 in 2010, making Greater Mendoza the fourth largest census metropolitan area in the country.

Two of the main industries of Mendoza area are olive oil production and wine making. The region around Greater Mendoza is the largest wine producing area in Latin America. As such, Mendoza is one of nine cities worldwide in the network of Great Capitals of Wine, and the city is an emerging enotourism (Wine tourism) destination and base for exploring the region's hundreds of wineries located along the Argentina Wine Route.

On March 2, 1561, Pedro del Castillo founded the city and named it Ciudad de Mendoza del Nuevo Valle de La Rioja after the governor of Chile, Don García Hurtado de Mendoza.[2] Before the 1560s the area was populated by three tribes, the Huarpes, the Puelches, and the Incas. The Huarpes devised a system of irrigation that was later developed by the Spanish. This allowed for an increase in population that might not have otherwise occurred. The system is still evident today in the wide trenches (acequias), which run along all city streets, watering the approximately 100,000 trees that line every street in Mendoza.

It is estimated that fewer than 80 Spanish settlers lived in the area before 1600, but later prosperity increased due to the use of indigenous and slave labor, and the Jesuit presence in the region. When nearby rivers were tapped as a source of irrigation in 1788 agricultural production increased. The extra revenues generated from this, and the ensuing additional trade with Buenos Aires, no doubt led to the creation of the state of Cuyo in 1813 with José de San Martín as governor. It was from Mendoza that San Martin, other Argentinian patriots and Chilean patriots organized the army with which they won the independence of Chile and Peru.[3]

Mendoza suffered a severe earthquake in 1861 that killed at least 5,000 people. The city was rebuilt, incorporating innovative urban designs that would better tolerate such seismic activity. Mendoza was rebuilt with large squares and wider streets and sidewalks than any other city in Argentina. Avenue Bartolomé Mitre and additional small squares are examples of that design. Tourism, wine production, and more recently the exploitation of hard commodities such as oil[4] and uranium[5] ensure Mendoza's status as a key regional center.

The city's suburbs, the most important of which are Godoy Cruz, Guaymallén, Las Heras, Luján de Cuyo, and Maipú, have in recent decades far outpaced the city proper in population. Comprising half the metro area population of 212,000 in 1947, these suburbs grew to nearly 7/8 of the total metro area of 894,000 by 2009, making Mendoza the most dispersed metro area in Argentina.[6]

In September 2013 a request was presented to the municipality to rename the city to its original native name Huentota, as opposed to the current name Mendoza, a reference to García Hurtado de Mendoza who had been accused of abuses against indigenous people.

Mendoza has several museums, including the Museo Cornelio Moyano, a natural history museum, and the Museo del Área Fundacional (Historical Regional Foundation Museum) on Pedro del Castillo Square. The Museo Nacional del Vino (National Wine Museum), focusing on the history of winemaking in the area, is 17 kilometres (11 miles) southeast of Mendoza in Maipú. The Casa de Fader, a historic house museum, is an 1890 mansion once home to artist Fernando Fader in nearby Mayor Drummond, 14 kilometres (9 miles) south of Mendoza. The mansion is home to many of the artist's paintings.

The Fiesta Nacional de la Vendimia (The National Grape Harvest Festival) occurs in early March each year. Part of the festivities include a beauty pageant, where 17 beauty queens from each department of Mendoza Province compete, and one winner is selected by a panel of about 50 judges. The queen of Mendoza city's department does not compete and acts as host for the other queens.

A landscape of a Mendoza City's part seen from the highest of Gómez building.

The city is centered around Plaza Independencia (Independence Plaza) with Avenida Sarmiento running through its center east-west, with the east side pedestrianized (peatonal). Other major streets, running perpendicular to Sarmiento, include Bartolomé Mitre, San Martín, and 9 de Julio (July 9th), those running parallel include Colón, and Las Heras. Four smaller plazas, San Martín, Chile, Italia, and España, are located 2 blocks off each corner of Independence Plaza. Unique to Mendoza are the exposed stone ditches, essentially small canals, which run alongside many of the roads supplying water to the thousands of trees that provide welcome shade. Those deep ditches also represent a fall hazard to unsuspecting visitors, particularly in the dark.[citation needed]

Mendoza is 1,037 km (644 mi) from Buenos Aires (13 hours by bus) and 380 km (236 mi) from Santiago, Chile (6–7 hours by bus). Mendoza also has an International Airport (MDZ). It takes less than 2 hours to fly from Buenos Aires and less than 1 hour from Santiago.

The public transport system includes buses, the Mendoza trolleybus system, and taxis. The trolleybuses are more comfortable than the city buses, but are slower, not as numerous nor is the system as extensive. In 2008, TransLink of Vancouver, Canada, sold most of its old trolleybus fleet to Mendoza.[9]

A heritage railway, El Tren del Vino (The Wine Train) is being planned which will also provide local transportation; it will run through wine producing districts of Mendoza.[10]

Mendoza's development was helped partly due to its position at the start of the Transandine Railway linking it to Santa Rosa de Los Andes in Chile. The only railway operable between Argentina and Chile, after many years of inactivity, is currently under restoration and testing for its revival as a freight line by Belgrano Cargas.[11][12][13][14]

The Transandine Railway is a 1,000 mm (3 ft 33⁄8 in) metre gauge line, with sections of Abt rack, whilst the railways it links with are both 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge. A journey from Buenos Aires to Chile involved two breaks-of-gauge, and therefore two changes of train, one at Mendoza, and the other at Santa Rosa de Los Andes.

Argentina’s most highly rated Malbec wines originate from Mendoza’s high altitude wine regions of Lujan de Cuyo and the Uco Valley. These Districts are located in the foothills of the Andes mountains between 2,800 and 5,000 feet elevation.[16][17][18][19]

Vintner Nicolas Catena Zapata is considered the pioneer of high-altitude growing and was the first, in 1994, to plant a malbec vineyard at 5,000 feet above sea level in the Mendoza region. His family is also credited with making world-class wines and giving status to the wines of Argentina.[20]

Seven Years in Tibet directed by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, was shot in and around Mendoza. Several dozens of sets were built, ranging from a 220-yard (200 m) long recreation of the Tibetan capital city of Lhasa (built in the foothills of the Andes), to a 9,000-square-foot (840 m2) recreation of the Hall of Good Deeds in the Potala, the ancient palace of the Dalai Lama (built in an abandoned garlic warehouse outside the city).

Mendoza's climate can be characterized as arid (Köppen climate classificationBWh or BWk depending on the isotherm used);[21] however, with extensive irrigation the surrounding landscape sustains cultivation with Mediterranean characteristics. Most precipitation in Mendoza falls in the summer months (November–March). Average temperatures for January (summer) are 32 °C (90 °F) during daytime, and 18.4 °C (65.1 °F) at night. July (winter) the average temperatures are 14.7 °C (58.5 °F) and 2.4 °C (36 °F), day and night respectively. Mendoza's annual rainfall is only 223.2 mm (8.8 in), so the intense agriculture is made possible by irrigation from major rivers.